Registered Nurse Interview Questions
There are two questions in a nursing interview and everything else is decoration.
The first is clinical: do you know what to do when a patient deteriorates? The second is cultural and it is the one that actually decides the panel: when something goes wrong, are you the nurse who tells someone?
You can see this in the questions employers actually ask. Candidates at Southern New Hampshire Health reported being asked to name a mistake they made caring for a patient. Candidates at Children's Hospital Colorado reported being asked what they would do if a family said another nurse had been on her phone all night. Candidates at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia reported being asked how they would advocate for a patient in pain when the physician refused to order medication. Those are not clinical questions. They are all the same question about disclosure and courage, dressed three different ways.
You have more standing in the room than the interview format suggests.
If you are a mid-level nurse, this is your page. The newly qualified nurse has one and the charge nurse has one; the middle does not, because everything below assumes shifts you have already run on your own.
One structural note before the questions. Two hiring systems, shaped differently. The NHS runs values-based recruitment as national policy, usually with a panel of two or three, and the questions map to the NMC Code. Hospitals outside that system lean on clinical scenarios plus behavioral panels, increasingly with a recorded one-way video before any human speaks to you. Read the section that matches your market.
Start here — the five most asked
In the order the sources put them. If you only have twenty minutes, spend them on these.
The phone screen
A recruiter filtering, not evaluating. Answer these quickly and get to the part that decides.
These two pages teach the frame. This page gives you the version that fits your field — read them together.
Opening
All levels
Tell me about yourself and your nursing experience.Show the answer guide
The most-reported opener in every source, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Build it around your unit, not your CV. Type of unit, ratio, typical acuity, the skills you're signed off on. "Twenty-eight bed med-surg, usually five patients, a lot of post-op and telemetry, I'm IV-certified and I precept students" tells a nurse manager everything in one breath.
Why did you become a nurse?reported by candidates at Mayo Clinic · NHSShow the answer guide
Everyone has a version of this, and the sentimental one is the version that arrives first. The ones that land are specific and slightly unglamorous — a family illness handled well, a job you had before this that showed you what you wanted. Avoid "I've always wanted to help people," which is true of everyone in the building.
Why this trust / this hospital / this unit?Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at NHS trusts and at AMITA Health in the US, phrased there as applying the organization's mission in everyday work.
One specific fact. Their unit's specialty, a service they've just opened, their accreditation status. NHS panels frequently ask about the trust by name — one candidate reported questions "relating to the trust I applied to" alongside their student experience.
Why are you leaving your current post?Show the answer guide
Toward, not away from. The nursing world is smaller than it looks.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?reported by candidates at Kaiser PermanenteShow the answer guide
Real, small, with the countermeasure.
Values-based recruitment: the Code and the panel
All levels
If you're interviewing with an NHS trust, this section is the interview.
NHS Employers describes values-based recruitment as national policy, delivered through pre-screening assessments, values-based interview techniques including role play and written scenario responses, and assessment-centre approaches. It is not a trust quirk — it's the system.
How will you demonstrate the values of this trust?Show the answer guide
Reported verbatim by an NHS staff nurse who was offered the job.
Look up the trust's actual values before you go — they're published, they differ, and panels notice when you've read them. Then do the thing almost nobody does: attach one concrete incident to each value you name. A value without a story is a poster.
Questions on the NMC Code, its principles and values.Show the answer guide
An NHS staff nurse reported being asked "questions related to the NMC principles and values" alongside behavioural, communication and interpersonal questions.
Know the Code's four themes and be able to say them naturally: prioritise people, practise effectively, preserve safety, promote professionalism and trust. You do not need to recite the document; you need to be able to hang an answer on the right theme.
Raising concerns.Show the answer guide
An honest note, because prep sites get this wrong. We found no candidate report of a panel asking "tell us about a time you raised a concern." What we did find is that raising concerns is an explicit NMC professional duty with its own published guidance.
So prepare it — not because it's a documented question, but because it's a documented obligation, and because the disclosure theme runs through so many questions that do get asked. Just don't let anyone tell you it's a guaranteed question.
What would you do if a patient complained and how would you help?Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at an NHS trust, in a values-based panel of three.
Strikingly, a candidate at King Faisal Specialist Hospital reported nearly identical wording. Accredited hospitals converge on this. Know the complaints route, when it escalates, and how it's documented.
Describe a difficult situation and how you resolved it. How do you work well in a team?reported by candidates at NHSShow the answer guide
Standard, and the panel is listening for a method rather than a happy ending.
Behavioral and situational
All levels
Which patient do you see first, and why?Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at Mount Sinai in the clearest form we found: a patient with chest pain, another reporting pain at ten out of ten, and a third whose colostomy bag has leaked open. Also reported by candidates at MemorialCare as prioritisation and appropriate interventions.
Answer with reasoning, not a memorized order. Life-threatening first, then what's deteriorating fastest, then what can be delegated, then what can genuinely wait ten minutes. Say what you'd delegate and to whom — that's the line between a competent answer and an experienced one.
Tell me about a conflict with a colleague and how you resolved it.Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at Cleveland Clinic ("tell me about a time you resolved a conflict between two people") and across NHS panels.
This is worth doing properly, because the gap between a weak and a strong answer here is enormous and mostly invisible to the candidate.
Weak version
A colleague on nights kept leaving her documentation for the day shift to finish. It was unfair on the rest of us, so I raised it with our manager and she was spoken to. After that it stopped.
Nothing in that answer is untrue and it still fails. The candidate's first move was escalation, the colleague is a problem rather than a person, and there's no evidence anyone tried to understand what was happening.
Strong version
A colleague on nights was consistently leaving charting for us to pick up. Before I raised it, I asked her about it — it turned out she was being pulled to cover breaks on the other side and losing her last hour every shift. So it wasn't really a documentation problem. We took it to the charge nurse together as a staffing issue rather than as a complaint about her, and the break cover got rebalanced. The charting stopped being an issue about two weeks later.
Same conflict, same resolution, completely different candidate. The second one asked first, found a cause instead of a culprit, and went to management with the colleague rather than about her. In a profession where the whole safety culture depends on people being willing to speak to each other, that difference is the entire assessment.
How do you deal with an uncooperative patient or family member?Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at Kaiser Permanente, and the most universal situational question in the role across every market.
A family says another nurse didn't care for their child properly — she was on her phone all night. What do you do?Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at Children's Hospital Colorado, and one of the hardest questions in this set.
You cannot dismiss the family and you cannot condemn a colleague on a second-hand account. Acknowledge, take it seriously, address the immediate care need, and route it through the proper channel — which usually means telling the charge nurse and letting the process work. Say that plainly. Panels are checking you won't bury it.
How would you advocate for a patient in pain when the physician refuses to order medication?reported by candidates at Children's Hospital of PhiladelphiaShow the answer guide
Assess and document objectively, present the evidence rather than the opinion, ask about alternatives, and escalate through the chain if it isn't resolved. Advocacy with a method beats advocacy with feeling.
How do you handle disagreements with physicians?reported by candidates at MD Anderson Cancer CenterShow the answer guide
Worth knowing if you're comparing markets: the expected shape of this answer differs. Panels in a speak-up culture reward a nurse who states the concern clearly and documents it. Employers with a strict chain of command reward the same substance delivered privately and upward, and a candidate who sounds confrontational is read as a future problem. Same patient-safety principle, different register.
Name a mistake you made while caring for a patient.reported by candidates at Southern New Hampshire HealthShow the answer guide
Never "I can't think of one." How it was found, what you did in the first minutes — patient first, always — who you told and how fast, the incident report, and what changed. The disclosure speed carries the answer.
Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a patient.Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia among others. One incident, one specific detail, no self-congratulation.
How do you handle stress?Show the answer guide
Reported widely and almost always paired with the unit's own stressor — ICU panels ask how you'll handle the ICU specifically. Describe an actual practice, not an attitude.
Also reported and worth two sentences each: how you keep your clinical knowledge current (RWJBarnabas Health) · how you feel about restraining patients (Strategic Behavioral Health) · how you feel about death and dying (Heartland Hospice) · what best practice you support for interdisciplinary care (Cleveland Clinic, framed around having no professional silos).
The technical sit-down
Where it stops being about your CV. You either know these or you don't — and bluffing fails on the follow-up.
Clinical
Entry – mid
Expect these to be unit-specific. A candidate at Kaiser Permanente reported a video panel with the unit director, assistant director and educator asking "a clinical question related to the unit population" — which is the pattern. Read the job posting, work out the population, prepare for that.
What would you do if you entered a patient's room and found them unconscious?Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at Fort HealthCare — and it is Glassdoor's top-ranked question for this role globally. Variants reported by candidates at Majestic Oaks (found on the floor, not breathing) and Apollo Hospitals (suddenly collapsed).
Walk the sequence out loud and don't compress it: check danger and responsiveness, call for help and activate the code, airway–breathing–circulation, start compressions, get the defibrillator and crash cart. Panels are grading the order.
What would you look for in a patient with sepsis? What are the signs?Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at Kaiser Permanente (new grad) and HC-One. A neonatal variant was reported by candidates at Royal Children's Hospital.
Name the screening tool your organization uses and the time-critical bundle. This is the single most-asked clinical question in the employer reports behind this page.
A septic patient with a low potassium level has an order for Vancomycin, but only one line. What do you do?Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at Prospect Medical Holdings, and a good example of how far the clinical questioning can escalate.
Think out loud, name compatibility as the issue, say what you'd check and who you'd call. "I'd check compatibility and call pharmacy" is a strong answer. Inventing a compatibility fact is not.
Signs and symptoms of cardiac tamponade.Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, whose ER candidates also reported situational questions that were "mostly ACLS." Critical-care and ED panels go here.
If you don't know a drug, where do you find the answer?Show the answer guide
Reported by candidates at HCA Florida Trinity Hospital for a new-grad role. The answer is your named reference and pharmacy — and the real content is that you look it up rather than proceeding.
When would you use a non-rebreather mask?reported by candidates at Presence HealthShow the answer guide
Expect oxygen-delivery questions on respiratory and step-down units.
If a client is drowsy, what would you check first?reported by candidates at Trillium Health PartnersShow the answer guide
A deceptively simple assessment-sequencing question.
A patient needs a cannula and is frightened of needles.Show the answer guide
Reported by a candidate recruiting through Kate Cowhig International Healthcare Recruitment. Half communication, half technique — say both.
Scenario: a patient with [condition]. How will you care for them?Show the answer guide
The generic shell, reported by candidates at MemorialCare with pneumonia, and at Saudi German Hospitals Group as "nursing situational." Structure it: assess, prioritise, intervene, escalate, document, and involve the family.
The credentials they will ask about
What each one does in this role's interview — not what the credential is.
The closing conversation
The part most candidates waste. What you ask here is read as carefully as what you answered.
Questions to ask them
- What's the nurse-to-patient ratio on this unit, and how often is it met?
- What does orientation look like, and how long is it?
- How is the unit staffed at night and at weekends?
- What's the turnover on this unit been like in the last year?
The last one is direct and entirely fair. How they answer it tells you more than the job description will.
Formats to expect
One-way recorded video. Reported by candidates at Kaiser Permanente (HireVue before the manager phone screen) and Mayo Clinic (online, one minute to think per question). Practise talking to a camera with a timer; it is genuinely harder than it sounds.
Panels, sometimes large. Mayo Clinic candidates reported panels of five or six, and one described a thirty-minute presentation plus a thirty-minute interview with a quiz. NHS panels are typically two or three. Ask who'll be in the room when you schedule.
A question that shouldn't be asked. A candidate at Providence reported being asked "you're almost 59 years old, how much longer do you think you are going to work?" — and flagged it as improper, correctly. Age questions like this are not a legitimate part of an interview. You are entitled to redirect to your capability and interest in the role, and you are entitled to decline. Knowing that in advance makes it far easier to stay composed.
The two pages every job shares
This guide covers your field. These two cover the frame the questions are built on — the behavioural canon, and the screening call that decides who reaches an interview at all.
- Behavioral interview questionsThe canon every profession shares: error, conflict, pressure, initiative, and where your limits are.www.atshiring.com/en/interview-questions/behavioral
- Screening and first-round questionsThe recruiter call: introductions, the administrative gate, and where people lose money on salary.www.atshiring.com/en/interview-questions/screening
Before the interview
Ordering note
Ordering reflects how often each question appears across the employer-attributed reports we consulted, combined with our judgement about what decides the outcome. The values-based section is separated because NHS values-based recruitment is a genuinely different format, not a variation. Where a question rests on a single candidate report, our provenance record says so.
Sources
Everything consulted for this page, named in plain text.
- Candidate interview reports — NHS staff nurse and registered nurse
- Candidate interview reports — registered nurses, multiple markets
- Candidate interview reports — KFSHRC, NGHA, SEHA, Saudi German, Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib, Hamad, KHCC
- NHS Employers — values-based recruitment
- NMC — The Code
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics — Occupational Outlook Handbook, Registered Nurses
- NMC — Principles of preceptorship
- NMC — The professional duty of candour (produced with the GMC)
- NMC — Raising concerns guidance for nurses and midwives